Mississippi nightclub didn’t infringe on Boston club’s trademark

A Superior Court judge has rejected a copyright infringement claim brought by a local after-hours nightclub against a similarly named Mississippi venue.

The ownership of Rise Club, a members-only dance club in Boston’s Back Bay, brought the suit after receiving two e-mails from customers congratulating them on opening a new club in Biloxi, Miss.

But the local Rise had no connection to Biloxi’s Rise Lounge, which was located in a Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and operated by the Gerber group, whose co-owner, Rande Gerber, is the husband of Cindy Crawford. (Gerber’s Rise Lounge closed last year after failing to meet profit expectations.)

Judge John C. Cratsley dismissed the suit filed by the Boston Rise owners, saying in his decision that the two venues’ logos, trademarks and operations were “sufficiently dissimilar to avoid a likelihood of confusion in the minds of the public.”

Even though two customers of the Boston Rise had initially thought the Biloxi club was related to the Boston club, Cratsley said that “two e-mails demonstrating initial confusion from prospective patrons of the plaintiff’s business that did not ultimately have an effect on that patron’s decision of which club to visit do not amount to the actual confusion required to support a likelihood of confusion finding.”

Cratsley also found that there was no proof that the Gerber group had intended to create confusion between the two venues, noting that the name of the Biloxi venue was chosen based on a company-wide contest to find a name for the club.